xt77h41jhn66 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77h41jhn66/data/mets.xml Wilson, Robert Burns, 1850-1916. 1898  books b96-9-34458958 English R.H. Russell, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Trees in literature. Shadows of the trees  : and other poems / by Robert Burns Wilson. text Shadows of the trees  : and other poems / by Robert Burns Wilson. 1898 2002 true xt77h41jhn66 section xt77h41jhn66 














  rhis edition is limited to two


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THE SHADOWS OF

  THE TREES

 












w

 

T HE   S HAD O WS
O F T H E   T R E E S
A N D O T H E R P O E M S
B Y R O B E R T B U R N S
    W I L S 0 N














    NEW YORK
    IL H. RUSSELL



M D C C C X C V I I I

 






























        Copyright, 1898, by
     ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL
Printed in the United States of America

 
                 CONTENTS


The Gateways of the Sea                               ix
Lines to a Child                                           1
A Phantasy                                                 3
A Song of New Seas                                         7
To a Crow                                             11
When in the Night We Wake and Hear the Rain           12
The Sunrise of the Poor                               15
The February Landscape                                16
A Winter Love Song                                    17
The Snow Flake                                        18
The Quiet Winter Fields                               19
A Night in February                                   20
In a Winter Vale                                      21
Let No Man's Soul Despair                             22
The Winter Night                                      23
If One Could Ease an Aching Heart                     24
The Traveller                                         26
The Passing of March                                  27
The Death of Winter                                   28
March, the Trumpeter                                  30
Away from My Loved Hills                              32
The Treacherous Sun                                   33
An Evening in March                                   34
Sonnets of Mad Winds and Sunshine                     36
A Love Song                                           39
Sonnets of the Winter Hill                            42
A Glance from Afar                                    44
It is in Winter that We Dream of Spring               46
Snow in March                                         47
The Voice of Spring                                   48
The Awakening                                         49
                           v

 

                    CONTENTS

Sweet is Fair April                                    so
A Walk with a Child                                    51
Eventide on the Battery                                54
Reed Call for April                                    S5
Treasure                                               58
Lee                                                    59
Sweet is the Pathway on the April Hill                 63
Rain in May                                            64
The Brook                                              6.5
The Song of a Woodland Spirit                          66
Elkhorn River                                          70
June Days                                              73
My Lady Sleeps                                         75
While Love Delays                                      77
The Portrait of a Lady                                 78
The Summer Day                                         80
July                                                   81
Sonnet to the Sun: Sunrise                             82
Sonnet to the Sun: Sunset                              83
The Rain that Comes over the Hill                      84
The Old Garden                                          86
The Summer Rain                                        89
In Memoriam                                            90
The Spirit of the Mountain Stream                      92
The Song Soul                                          97
The Princess Ina: An Unfinished Picture               100
Sonnets of Similitude                                 102
Love's Girdle                                         104
The Passing Gleam                                     105
An Inscription, a Sonnet, and a Quatrain              106
Enchantment: An Idyl                                  107
A Fair Ddbutante                                      109
                            Vi

 


CONTENTS



The Shadows of the Trees                              110
A Song to the Glory of the Sun                        115
WVith No Interpreter                                 121
A Wild Violet in November                             12 2
To a Serpent                                          12.5
The Angel of Sleep                                    126
The Winged Victory of Samothrace                      131
The Piper at Dargai                                   132
Remember the Maine                                    133
An Autumn Picture                                     135
A Bachelor's Christmas                                136
Where Summer Bides: A Winter Day-Dream                137
Better Life's Loneliest Path to Tread                 143
Dust and Ashes                                        144
Would We Return                                       146
I Shall Find Rest                                     148
Evening at Ashland                                    150
The Dead Player                                       151
When Evening Cometh On                                152
A Prayer                                              156
Ballad of the Faded Field                             157



vii

 













      THE GATE-WAYS OF THE SEA
      They that set sail upon the ship of song
      Are borne to deep seas and return no more.


Spread-sread, white wings!-Thegate-ways of the sea
No man may close-the sunshine and salt spray
Await our coming-Out! out; and away
From all dull prison shores-the tides are free-
The winds unchained-and no King'8 vassals we.
The open sea is ours-Farewell delay!-
Unreef thy sails-far, past the placid bay,
The blue waves of the ocean beckon thee.

A flame-like scarf, the only flag we fly,
Streams from the peak in honour of the Muse:
And one less loved no mariner could choose.
But if no ship salute us passing by,
No whit we care-black waves and storm defying,
We will go down with our own Thracian banner flying.

 


  THE SHADOWS OF

          THE TREES




LINES TO A CHILD
            DEAR little face,
  With placid brow and clear, up-looking eyes,
And prattling lips that speak no evil thing;
  And dimpling smiles, free of fair-seeming lies,
    Unschooled to ape the dreary world's pretence;
    Sweet imager of cloudless innocence,
The tenderest flower of Nature's fashioning:-
  A dewy rose amidst the wilderness,
Amidst the desert a clear-welling spring,
  So is thy undissembling loveliness,
            Dear little face.

            Dear little hand!
  How sweet it is to feel against my own
The touch of that soft palm, which never yet
  The taint of soul-destroying gold hath known:
    There Nature's seal of trustfulness is pressed,
    Even as her loving touch the lily blessed
With stainless purity-even as she set
  The golden flame upon the daffodil,
And heaven's clear blue upon the violet,
  May her best gifts be for thy clasping still,
            Dear little hand.
                   [ 1I

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



            Dear little heart
  That never harboured any ill intent,
That nothing knows of bitterness or care,
  But only young life's nestling wonderment
    Amidst thy strange, new joys-thy incomplete
    Unfledged emotions and affections sweet.
Veiled, by the unlived years, thy field, but there
  The sowing for thy harvest hath begun:
When thou shalt reap and bind, may no despair
  Rise from that ground, betwixt thee and the sun,
            Dear little heart



[ 2

 

P 0 E M S



A PHANTASY
  TiE apple buds in crystal sleet,
The peach tree blooms with snow;
  The gray hills and the gray clouds meet,
The meadow brook runs low,


  In frost and sad half-silence bound;-
And yet it sings not ill;
  Haply some spirit in the ground
Remembereth Summer still.


  For in the thicket near she bides,
Chilled by the whistling blast;
  But in her frozen breast she hides
Her hopes, till grief be past.


  Sing on, ye winmpling waters, clear,
Though snow and ice enfold.
  Cease not; though all the world be drear
The song charms, as of old.


  These joys, which with the year depart,
Come with the following year;
  It is the winter in the heart
That makes an end of cheer.



[ 3 1

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



  The apple buds in crystal sleet,
The peach tree blooms with snow;
  The gray hills and the gray clouds meet,
The meadow brook runs low.

  Hark how the knowing wind doth stay
To chide yon rusting scythe;
  Remembering well, the dappled brae
Which bloomed so fair and blythe.

  Remembering well the flashing death
Which laid that beauty low;
  The dying daisies, and the breath
Of gladness, turned to woe.

  Even now, meseems, a figure tall,
Of not ungentle mien,
  Hath moved along the garden wall
And by the gate doth lean.

  He takes the scythe down from its place,
And one wan cheek is laid
  Close to the arc, while he doth trace
The dulled edge of the blade.

  And now awakes a rhythmic tone,
Swift-throbbing, peal on peal,
  Stroke following stroke, the whetting stone
Rings on the rusted steel.
                 I 4]

 

P 0 E M S



  In fancy now I see the sweep
Of that remorseless arm;
  Once more, in vain, I strive to keep
The flower I loved, from harm.

  The apple buds in crystal sleet,
The peach tree blooms with snow;
  The gray hills and the gray clouds meet,
The meadow brook runs low.

  Oh, darkness of the noon-day sun;-
Oh, Summer, turned to gray!
  When evening came his task was done,
And he went on his way.

  And I-Oh Brook, sing on, sing clear!
Though ice and snow enfold,-
  For, ever in thy voice, I hear
The vanished dream retold.

  Gaunt reaper of the earth's wide lands,
Think'st thou 'tis Summer still
  There is no harvest for thy hands,
The fields are white and chill.

  The flow, ers are faded, and the grain
Was gathered long ago;
  Put up thy scythe-it would be vain,
Thou canst not garner snow.

                 [ 5 ]

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



Till Summer comes-sad spectre, wait;
Not all hearts wish thee ill;
  Here, hanging by the orchard gate-
Thy scythe shall wait thy will.

  The apple buds in crystal sleet,
The peach tree blooms in snow;
  The gray hills and the gray clouds meet,
The meadow brook runs low.



]6

 


                       P 0 E M S

A SONG OF NEW SEAS
GIVE US new seas to sail-the cry is, give us new seas to sail!
New seas to sail, be they never so mad, and we ship in the
  teeth of the gale:
For the old seas pall on our souls like death, their tides and
  their deeps we know,
The slope of the continents under the brine, and the black
  ooze beds below.

The currents that drift from pole to pole-what new hope
  can they bring-
And the breakers that beat on the thousand shores, what
  new song can they sing
The thousand shores-the dreary stretch, what have they
  else to give,
But the same dull death for those that die, and the same dull
  life to live!

The thousand shores-the gabbling millions, fronting the
  patient sun,
What will they do in their child's-play world, but that they
  have always done
These slaves of time with the farce of their flags, and their
  dIrivelling cant, accurst,
The will know no more when the last man lives, than the
  first man knew at first.



[ 7]

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



The insolence of the rich, the same complaining of the poor;
The wrongs of the race piled up and up-it has all been done
  before-
Till the smoke turns into flame-and the slaves to madmen
  turn, and then-
The ashes-and the game renewed-such are the sons of
  men.

We build new ships, we set new sails, our hearts are filled
  anew
WVith higher hopes, with better thoughts, we ask new work
  to do.
Wherever they roll-in the burning belt-or hemmed in a
  frozen mail,
We ask new seas to sail-Great God!-Are there no new
  seas to sail

Is there no place left on this mottled ball-no land in an
  unknown sea,
Where the soul might grow to be something more than it
  now seems doomed to be
Shall we never have done with the rotting past, and the
  shrivelled claw-like hands
That grapple and strangle the heart of life till it dies in
  grave-cloth bands



[8]I

 

                       P O EMAI S

The hands that are dead and are never dead -shall we never
  be free of these
They stretch from the grave of life that was, and hale us
  where they please;
They build our cities, they frame our creeds, they write our
  laws, our songs;
They set their musty seal on all that of right to us belongs.

Shall we never be more than the slaves of death-the death
  that is never dead-
The death that feeds on the good red blood which was meant
  for us, instead
Shall we never find strength with a sword of light, to shear
  our own life free,
And to make it our own, as God meant we should, as man's
  life ought to be

We build new ships, we set new sails, we resolve our charts
  anew,
But, for ever, we sail on the same dull seas, by the will of the
  same dead crew;
And they sail us close to the killing wind which blows from
  the tombs of eld,
And in spite of the quick hands on the wheel, the same old
  course is held.



[ 9 1

 
ROBERT BURNS WILSO ON



We are fond of our symbols. Mark, the torch, which, when
  one bearer drops,
The next one grasps-and the next, and the next, so the
  borne flame never stops-
But this, like the others all, is false:-the flame and the man,
  both, die,
And the next one starts, with his own green torch, and the
  taunts of the standers-by.

Is the day of our hope not near-when we will seek for the
  truth and find
That the soul's best gifts are lost in the waste of a backward-
  looking mind
Shall we make new paths where none are made, shall we strive
  and, at last, prevail,
And at some time build our ships, please God-where there
  are new seas to sail



! 10 I

 



P 0 E M S



TO A CROW
BOLD, amiable, ebon outlaw, grave and wise!
For many a good green year hast thou withstood -
By dangerous, planted field, and haunted wood-
All the devices of thine enemies.
Gleaning thy grudged bread with watchful eyes,
And self-relying soul. Come ill or good,
Blithe days thou see'st, thou feathered Robin Hood!
Thou mak'st a jest of farm-land boundaries.

Take all thou may'st, and never count it crime
To rob the greatest robber of the earth,
Weak-visioned, dull, self-lauding man, whose worth
Is in his own esteem. Bide thou thy time;
Thou know'st far more of Nature's lore than he,
And her wide lap shall still provide for thee.



! I I   I

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



WHEN IN THE NIGHT WE WAKE AND HEAR THE
RAIN
WHEN in the night we wake and hear the rain
Like myriad merry footfalls on the grass,
And, on the roof, the friendly, threatening crash
Of sweeping, cloud-sped messengers, that pass
Far through the clamouring night; or loudly dash
Against the rattling windows; storming, still,
In swift recurrence, each dim-streaming pane,
Insistent that the dreamer wake, within,
And dancing in the darkness on the sill:
How is it, then, with us-amidst the din,
    Recalled from Sleep's dim, vision-swept domain-
    When in the night we wake and hear the rain


When in the night we wake and hear the rain,
Like mellow music, comforting the earth;
A muffled, half-elusive serenade,
Too softly sung for grief, too grave for mirth;
Such as night-wandering, fairy minstrels made
In fabled happier days; while far in space
The serious thunder rolls a deep refrain,
Jarring the forest, wherein Silence makes,
Amidst the stillness, her lone dwelling-place:
Then in the soul's sad consciousness awakes
     Some nameless chord, touched by that haunting strain,
     When in the night we wake and hear the rain.



[ 12 1

 


P 0 E M S



When in the night we wake and hear the rain,
And from blown casements see the lightning sweep
The ocean's breadth with instantaneous fire,
Dimpling the lingering curve of waves that creep
In steady tumult-waves that never tire
For vexing, night and day, the glistening rocks,
Firm-fixed in their immovable disdain
Against the sea's alternate rage and play:
Comes there not something on the wind which mocks
The feeble thoughts, the foolish aims that sway
    Our souls with hopes of unenduring gain-
    When in the night we wake and hear the rain


When in the night we wake and hear the rain
Which on the white bloom of the orchard falls
And on the young, green wheat-blades, nodding now,
And on the half-turned field, where thought recalls
How in the furrow stands the rusting plow,
Then fancy pictures what the day will see-
The ducklings paddling in the puddled lane,
Sheep grazing slowly up the emerald slope,
Clear bird-notes ringing, and the droning bee
Among the lilacs' bloom-enchanting hope-
    How fair the fading dreams we entertain,
    When in the night we wake and hear the rain!



[ 13 1

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



When in the night we wake and hear the rain
Which falls on Summer's ashes, when the leaves
Are few and fading, and the fields, forlorn,
No more remember their long-gathered sheaves,
Nor aught of all the gladness they have worn;
When melancholy veils the misty hills
Where sombre Autumn's latest glories wane;
Then goes the soul forth where the sad year lays
On Summer's grave her withered gifts, and fills
Her urn with broken memories of sweet days-
    Dear days which, being vanished, yet remain,
    When in the night we wake and hear the rain.


When in the night we wake not with the rain-
When Silence, like a watchful shade, will keep,
Too well, her vigil by the lonely bed,
In which at last we rest in quiet sleep;
While from the sod the melted snows be shed,
And Spring's green grass, with Summer's ripening sun,
Grows brown and matted like a lion's mane-
How will it be with us No more to care
Along the journeying wind's wild path to run
When Nature's voice shall call, no more to share
    Love's madness-no regret-no longings vain-
    When in the night we wake not with the rain.



[ 14 I

 


I" ( E AI S



THE SUNRISE OF THE POOR
A DARKENED hut outlined against the sky,
A forward-looking slope-some cedar trees,
Gaunt grasses stirred by the awaking breeze,
And nearer, where the grayer shadows lie,
Within a small paled square, one may descry
The beds wherein the Poor first taste of ease,
Where dewy rose-vines drop their spicy lees
Above the dreamless ashes, silently.

A lonely woman leans there-bent and gray:
Outlined in part, against the shadowed hill,
In part, against the sky, in which the day
Begins to blaze. Oh earth, so sweet-so still!-
The woman sighs, and draws a long, deep breath:
It is the call to labour-not to death.



[ 15 ]

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



THE FEBRUARY LANDSCAPE
MIST fills the air, and in the muffled sky,
The heavy clouds lean eastward as they drift
In one gray, moving wall, without a rift.
The straggling crows call faintly, as they fly
On labouring wings, with feathers blown awry:-
Black phantoms in the vaporous fumes, which shift
With urging winds that vex but never lift
The blurring rack which they drive swiftly by.

The near fields, rich with dark, wet weeds, with brough
And yellow grasses, mingling here and there,
And mosque-like clustering stacks-each lifted crouwn
Well shaped and pointed-have an alien air,
Like dreamed-of Eastern plains-and like a dream,
Slow-fading in the gathering dusk they seem.



r I' 1g

 





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P O E M S



A WINTER LOVE SONG
THE sad fields veiled in falling snow-
  They are not sad to me:-
Not chill, to me, the winds that blow,
  However chill they be.
The eddying flakes that speed away,
  With music they drift down
Through myriad, lacing branches gray,
  On dead leaves crisp and brown.

No bloom upon the whit'ning hill,
  No leaf upon the tree;
The music is sad music-still,
  It is not sad to me.
For song, with my heart's muffled might
  Keeps measure, blow for blow;
My love's sweet breast is warm and white,
  And softer than the snow.



[ 17 1

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



THE SNOW-FLAKE
FAIR, fragile waif;-whose wandering child art thou
Climbed thou the sun's beam, from the ocean's breast
Or from some ice-capl)ed mountain's sparkling crest,
Or from the rill which bathed yon hill's hot brow
When Summer's fever burned-all ashen, now,
With Winter's savage frown or did'st thou rest
Within some pool which breathing Spring caressed
With silken leaves, that decked the dipping bough

Mayhap, a tear-like drop of morning's dew
Wert thou-spilled from the hare-bell's trembling cup,
Or nestled on some blade-content to be
The glory of the ray which bare thee up,
Far-far-within the sky's wide sea of blue:-
Now, wandering back across the frozen lea.



[ 18  

 


P 0 E M S



THE QUIET WINTER FIELDS
    SWEET are the winter fields;
  The quiet winter fields of brown and gray,
And green, and tawny yellow, like the manes
Of Asiatic lions; lonely plains
    Of pleasing desolation, whence the yields
  Of sumptuous summer, have been borne away;
Long, silent lands-haunts of the wandering air
Which breathes out, sighing, from the woodlands bare;
  How sad-how sweet, are they!



[ 19 I

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



A NIGHT IN FEBRUARY
UNSEEN the rain falls through the darkened air,
The soft, fresh air, new-scented from the hills,
Down whose moist earth the muddy little rills
Make midnight mirth. One can imagine there,
The streaming trees, the weeping branches bare,
The wrecked vines, eloquent of Winter's ills,
The tearful briers, the pool which slowly fills,
Set round with dead weeds, leafless, gaunt and spare.

The black and muffled cedars, where they loom
Slow-tossed, against the drowned and leaden sky.
Anon some stream's loud madness stirs the gloom,
Swept with the fitful gust that scurries by:-
Then all sounds blend in one continuing strain;
The deep, melodious murmuring of the rain.



[ 20 1

 


P O E M S



IN A WINTER VALE
PERHAPS the world is well away
And well forgot;-one cannot know.
But good it seems to walk alone
This quiet winter vale; to hear
This stream's delicious waters clear
Thus blithely singing as they flow;
For now, that limpid monotone
Makes sweeter music for the drear,
Short days, when all the hills are gray,
Than when the young, green-girdled year
In this sad province held her sway,
And made both brook and birds her own.
Changed are these haunts of hers; the sere
And sunlit, silent slopes appear
More faded for the kindling ray,
Which gilds, but cannot cheer decay:
Yet, as of old, floats forth the low,
Soft music of the stream. How dear
That song-how passing sweet to hear.
Perhaps the world is well away
And well forgot;-one cannot know.



r21 ]

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



LET NO MAN'S SOUL DESPAIR!
LET no man's soul despair!
The same eternal powers, for good or ill;
The same unslumbering care
Which lived of old, are quick and potent still,
And bend, obedient to the dauntless will
Of souls that do and dare.



r Ad  

 

P O E M S



THE WINTER NIGHT
  Now, bitter cold, the thin and vagrant air
Steals from the frozen shadows of the trees;
  Dead are the hills that were so green and fair;
Hushed are the streams, and, joyless as the seas
Far-stretched beneath the cheerless polar sky,
The sad, snow-shrouded fields, in solemn silence lie.



[ 23 3

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



IF ONE COULD EASE AN ACHING HEART
IF one could ease an aching heart
  By breathing of the mountain air,
Or woo the wary soul to part
  A little from the path of care,
A little from the beaten road
  To turn away-an hour of grace
To build the troubled heart's abode
  In some forgetful resting-place;
To turn and leave the dust and heat,
  The common highway of mankind,
Where all the plodding, weary feet
  Tread down the dust of death-to find,
But once, some dewy, cool retreat,
  In which the fevered heart and mind
Might put their burthens down, and meet
  Some dream long lost, some hope resigned,
Some joy at once complete: -

If one could lose love's vain regret
  By gazing on the shining sea,
Or still the trembling chords that fret,
  By wandering on the upland lea,
Or find some balm and comfort yet
  In hope of better things to be, -
If pale remembrance did not halt
  To take each faded garland up,
And if her tears' remorseful salt
  Marred not the taste of pleasure's cup,
                   [ !24 ]

 


P 0 EM11 S



If fickle Fortune's luring smile
  Did not foretell her darkening frown,
And if her touch could not beguile
  The temples with a tinsel crown:-

If there were never maddening sneer
  On Fame's proud-smiling lips of scorn,
To mock the daring soul with fear,
  And leave the broken clay forlorn,-
If sweet religion did not grow
  To be a blind and poisoned thing,
That taints with death the limpid flow
  Of kindly Nature's crystal spring,-
Then life were not so sad a dream
  But that the waking might be pain;
Then hope were not a transient gleam
  Like sunlight on the falling rain,
Nor could dear heaven's descending beam
  Rest on the earth in vain.



[ 25 1

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



THE TRAVELLER
So many memories we, in silence, own;
So many hopes, no other soul can guess;
So many thoughts which words will not express;
So many longings that are never shown;
So many faults we hide with grief unknown;
So many wounds the heart may not confess;
What wonder, if at last, in bitterness,
The soul should cry, "I am alone, alone!"

Through this green world our shadowed path-ways lead,
And though each hasting traveller may know
What millions walk which way his footsteps go,
Yet, in the darkness, and at sorest need,
In silence journeys he-as with the dead;
Alone-each soul, its own lone path must tread.



[ 213 1

 


P O E M S



THE PASSING OF MARCH
THE braggart March stood in the season's door
  With his broad shoulders blocking up the way,
Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore,
  And from the fringes of his kirtle gray.
Near by him April stood with tearful face,
  With violets in her hands, and in her hair
Pale, wild anemones; the fragrant lace
  Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair,
  Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.

She on the blusterer's arm laid one white hand,
  But he would none of her soft blandishment;
Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand,
  For even the fiercest hearts at last relent.
And he, at last, in ruffian tenderness,
  With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet:
Ah, poor starved heart! -for that one rude caress,
  She cast her violets underneath his feet.



r _   .
i  -' I

 
ROBERT BURNS WILSON



THE DEATH OF WINTER
PIERCED by the sun's bright arrows, Winter lies
  With dabbled robes upon the blurred hill-side;
Fast runs the clear, cold blood, in vain he tries
  With cooling breath to check the flowing tide.

He faintly hears the footsteps of fair Spring
  Advancing through the woodland to the dell;
Anon she stops to hear the waters sing,
  And call the flowers, that know her voice full well.

Ah, now she smiles to see the glancing stream;
  She stirs the dead leaves with her anxious feet;
She stoops to plant the first awakening beam,
  And woos the cold Earth with warm breathings sweet.

"Ah, gentle mistress, doth thy soul rejoice
  To find me thus laid low So fair thou art!
Let me but hear the music of thy voice;
  Let me but die upon thy pitying heart.

"Soon endeth life for me. Thou wilt be blessed;
  The flowering fields, the budding trees be thine.
Grant me the pillow of thy fragrant breast;
  Then come, oblivion, I no more repine."

Thus urged the dying Winter. She, the fair,
  Whose heart hath love, and only love, to give,
Did quickly lay her full, warm bosom bare
  For his cold cheek, and fondly whispered "Live."
                     [ 28 1

 


P O E M S



His cold, white lips close to her heart she pressed;
  Her sighs were mingled with each breath he drew;
And when the strong life faded, on her breast,
  Her own soft tears fell down like heavenly dew.

O ye sweet blosso: i of the whispering lea,
  Ye fair, frail children of the woodland wide,
Ye are the fruit of that dear love which she
  Did give to wounded Winter ere he died.

And some are tinted like her eyes of blue,
  Some hold the blush that on her cheek did glow,
Some from her lips have caught their scarlet hue,
  But more still keep the whiteness of the snow.



[ 29 1

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



MARCH, THE TRUMPETER
SHAKE off from your sere, russet robes, 0 ye hills, the red rust
  and the rime of the Winter!
Arouse, from your dusky repose, 0 ye vales, from the trance
  and the stupor of slumber!
Awake, 0 ye sorrowing fields, and ye streams, break away
  from the gates of your prisons!
For March bulging out his bronze cheek, with fierce breath,
  sets his lips to the loud-sounding trumpet.


Loud-voiced as the thunder he cries, and the clouds rise and
  roll through the heavens before him;
He strides with the rush of the leaves that are whirled on
  his path through the echoing forest;
The great trees are swayed and the branches are snapt where
  he speeds in the strength of his going;
Outwinding the unwearied blast, and assailing the wilds with
  his clarion calling.


The prophet of Spring, the rude herald of hope and the com-
  ing of days of rejoicing-
He takes the wet snows on his locks, undismayed, and makes
  mirth in the storms of the mountains;
He stems the cold rains, and laughs loud with the mad, tawny
  streams in their lion-like leaping;
He shouts from the thundering gorge, and makes cheer in the
  chill, murky mists of the valleys.
                          [30]

 

P 0 E M S



Strong singer of songs that first rouse the dead heart of the
  earth from the Winter's enfolding,
Few days of the sun gild thy boisterous course, and thy feet
  find no haven of resting;
But thou art the brave-breasted bearer of promise, for peace
  coineth after the battle,
And soon the wide track of thy conquest will bloom with the
  vernal reward of thy passion.



[ 31 ]

 

ROBERT BURNS WILSON



AWAY FROM MY LOVED HILLS
AWAY from my loved hills! -Away from all
That is most dear to my unhappy soul,
I go in sadness; nor can I control
My anxious thoughts, nor check the tears that fall.
Vain is the pale delusion which we call
Philosophy. It never can console
The heart's distress, nor lighter make the dole
For fortune's woundings, be they great or small.

Yet, be it only some new grief to find,
Or to bring back the dear reward of pain,
The trial shall be made. Not all in vain
Shall be the patient battle of the mind;
And, though I know not what the days will bring,
In hope I go forth to my journeying.



[ 32 ]

 


P 0 E M S



THE TREACHEROUS SUN
MID-MARCH-and more-the buds half-blown, and killed!
And Nature crouches shivering, like the meek
And mumbling fool she is. On either cheek
A tear clings, frozen, and her veins, late-thrilled
In one brief moment's pleasure, now are chilled
With icy touches; on her lip the weak
Consenting smile still dumbly stays to speak
The foolish trust with which her heart was filled.

She'll never learn to doubt the treacherous Sun.
Each year she lifts her face for his first kiss;
Each year, with his first glance her heart is won,
All wrong forgiven for one short hour of bliss.
Oh Earth! we, thy true children are by this,
Soon-loving fools are we, and soon undone.



33 1

 


ROBERT BURNS WILSON



AN EVENING INN MARCH
Now sweeps the wind down from the waking hills,
  Moist with the tears of Winter's closing eye;
Now swells the heart, and we forget the ills
  Of all the frozen days that are gone by.
But all was dear to me; the ice-lipped stream
  Complaining to the listless grass that hung
In undisturbed monotony; the dream
  That held the drooping cedars; men have sung
Their sweetest songs of these gray, quiet days,
For Nature's melancholy strikes the noblest chords she plays.

Oh, strange, sweet time, when life's renewing force
  Begins to tingle through all Nature's veins;
The yellow river blusters in his course,
  Fierce with the gathered strength of constant rains.
The close-cut willow shakes her tawny mane,
  The banks put o